From Aerandria Scans:Mika is just a normal high school student who dreams of having a wonderful love. And then one day, she happens to meet Hiro, the guy of her destiny. While experiencing many sad events, and while getting hurt, the time she spends with him is still one of the most happy moments in her life...

I feel like reviewing this manga now. At first I was interested to read this because of the "tragedy" genre, and then the second reason was because the series runs until volume 10, which was quite a number, despite of it being a story of high school love.Honestly, Just by reading the first half volumes of Koizora, I feel like the author just add up EVERY single thing that will happen to a high school girl and boy: drugs, smoking, rape, sex, getting pregnant, and then miscarriage, to make a tragic main character(s). It's really annoying to me! Surely, if there should be any cliche romance, there are still many other ways to picture it =_=And then, I feel like the characters have a very weak concept that I feel no happiness nor sympathy when reading this. Totally disappointed about this part!But, well, I don't really hate this manga at all, 'cause I'm always trying to be objective here. Although it's still far from any good mangas that I read out there.

Have you ever loved someone so much that even in your thoughts of death, you still thought about what would give that person happiness? Who can say that is not true love?!?

Seriously though this has a lot of Drama.. Like a lot . Also don't Look for a typical shoujo manga with Happy Ending.. But if you wanna read a story about true love then bear it ...BUT do have a box of Kleenex ready..I do think the manga is better than the movie. I found the acting a little dull. I thought the character's emotions were expressed better in the manga. A lot WILL FIND THIS depressing, annoying, crazy because this story is not about what is best for "ME/I" but rather what is best for "her/him" to be happy.To truly understand this manga you have to try and understand BOTH his&her point of view, why they did the things they did.

I don't know of I like this manga or not. I originally rated it a 10, but now that I'm re-reading it, I find it annoying. It's like the mangaka is purposely trying to pull at our heart strings, but instead, I'm just annoyed at the main characters. The Japanese high school drama in this is super clichéd! I got annoyed super fast, but for some reason, I can't bring myself to completely hate it...

I have read quite a lot of tragic shojo manga, and I find all of them a whole lot better than this one. There was so many things wrong with this manga, I don't even know where to start. Well, I guess the art wasn't bad, it was pretty good (but that's one of the few things that were okay). I would've stopped at one of the earlier chapters but... I decided to see if the story could redeem itself. Sad to say, it didn't for me.

Spoiler (mouse over to view)

Firstly, the pacing of the manga was atrocious. It felt like that mangaka just threw at us ALL the unfortunate events she could think of, one after another after another after another. At some point I was just like, 'This is getting stupid'. I mean, no one would be able to get through all those tragedies the way Mika did. It's just not possible. I mean, getting raped and receiving no counselling AT ALL? Oh no, Hiro will just beat up the bad guys and they apologise. End of that. Yeah... very realistic. Then, they do IT in the library? COME ON, so romantic, am I right? After only being together for like a month? That's not even the worst part. Mika then gets pregnant and loses the baby. WHAT??

Then the part that made me so MAD. The characterisation of Mika was appalling. She is one of the weakest and worst heroine I have ever read about. She is the epitome of how a girl should never, ever act. All she does is lament and cry, then does it some more. She seriously reminded me of a lost dog, trying to find its owner. I mean, Mika was such an idiot and loser for chasing after Hiro. He treated her like absolute CRAP, raped her, then threatened her to burn herself with a cigarette or he dumps her. Even after she burnt herself, he couldn't even keep a lousy promise and not break up with her ==" AND SHE STILL LOVED HIM. Yes. I would love to chase after a guy like that >.> Mika then finds another guy, Yuu. I actually put up with this manga especially just for him.

From here, the story looked so, so, so promising! I was finally like, 'Yay!'. She finally met a guy who is actually worth loving. Yuu, was absolutely lovely, he listen to Mika and helped her out through her troubles. He was a listener and everything a girl could want. But she is still stuck on that oppressive and disgusting Hiro. But I overlooked that, thinking she'd eventually forget about him....BOY, WAS I WRONG.

So, we now find out that Hiro has cancer. I kinda knew when he had the beanie on, and I was hoping with all my heart he would die off, leaving Mika together with Yuu, so at least something could come out of this story. But, sadly, he didn't. So, from this we find out why he was treating Mika so badly and why he broke up with her. Honestly, that is absoloutely pathetic. No-one in their right mind would use cancer as an excuse to act the way Hiro did. That's just not how life works. People with cancer in real life are fighting for their lives and are trying to live each day to its fullest. Not spend it sniffing paint, tormenting people and who knows what else.

Then the worst part comes. Mika leaves Yuu and returns to Hiro. I was actually rooting for her friend that slapped her. Heck, if I were that friend, I would have given Mika a quadra-slap, and screamed at her and her stupidity and idiocy. After that, I stopped reading.

It was getting beyond ridiculous.

And that, is my input on why I think this is one of the worst manga I have ever read.

Granted, if you want to see how sad a love story this is, by all means go ahead. Some people could tolerate it, I just wasn't one of them.

Seriously are you kidding me? I've only read up to chapter 6 and they've had sex, Mika's been gang raped, she's been harrassed by Hiro's ex, she started cutting, she's pregnant, she's been proposed to, she's kissed another guy, and so much freaking more. This is just ridiculous. Pregant after what a month of dating.

And Hiro, GOSH! he's so creepy. How is one of the tags of this not posessive lover? He dominates Mika. She talked to another guy about being harrassed by HIS ex and what happens? He punches the guy and breaks a window. He then accuses the guy of breaking the window. How childish! Only when the guy quits school does he forgive him. And how does Mika respond? By having sex with him in the library! She's so stupid. What's wrong with her? She blames herself?

ALSO, the girl was gang raped, so what do they do? They find and they punch them, the end. She forgets all about it. WTF? You don't forget that. And you don't even consider telling the police, your friends, or your parents.

Oh, and, how could I forget?! Her stomach hurt so there must have been a miscarriage. AND in the first 6 chapters! REALLY?!

I feel no love between the characters. Them being together is just that, they're just there. No part of the story has made me care about them at all.

Ok, I'm done

I hate this manga and i've only read the first 6 chapters. I hate the characters. The main girl is so stupid and the main boy is oppressive and creepy. The plot was horrible and the art wasn't very good either. The story moves so fast it's ridiculous, I can already figure out the whole story basically.

nao don't get me wrong. I absolutely love shoujo. I love the romance, I love the cliches, I even love most of the helpless and naive characters. but they have to be within reason. has anything Mika or Hiro ever done considered reasonable? would YOU ever do that in their shoes?

how does one come up with such a horrible cast of characters whose personalities are completely one-sided and extreme? koizora is the exact reason why reasonable people have such a low low opinion of shoujo. it's because it is laden with mindless characters, asshole male leads who are loved unconditionally, polarized characters, oh and tragedy because romance and tragedy make a great hit, huh.

I can't feel sympathy for any of the characters. I don't even feel bad for Mika or Hiro. The way I see it, Hiro deserves to die. people who use death as an excuse for shitty behaviour aren't even worth living. there are actual dying people who are trying their hardest to live out their last day. then you have this scum of the earth who thinks that dying justifies everything. these characters deserve their fate

I'm going to have to try to compose myself after reading this series. Let's put it lightly. This manga made me angry. Not uuuugh angry, like wanting to walk down the street and punch random pedestrians in the stomach angry.

And I know a lot of people will read this and go "THIS JUST ISN'T YOUR GENRE" or "IT'S TRAGEDY STUPID"

But I've read tons of shojo, and tragedy is usually my favorite kind of book/manga/movie/generally anything.So I assure you I'm not complaining about genres and things I don't like. I'm saying this was just generally all around a pretty awful manga. It's not the art or anything either. It's just wow these characters, this plot, these themes and unfortunate implications, are just too much to handle. I can't see how anyone can find this romantic.

Spoiler (mouse over to view)

So Mika is a TYPICAL HIGH SCHOOL GIRL, doing typical high school stuff, yada yada yada, She gets in fights with her obviously going to be a villain "friend" in the cliche POISONOUS FRIEND vein. Yeah yeah, typical shojo, normal enough. So she sees HOT STUD and he scares her and attacks some guy but then she talks on a phone and she's like "OH HE'S NOT AS SCARY I'LL GIVE HIM MY PHONE NUMBER". And they go on a date. You know. Also known as his penis. Okay. Where it's revealed he was lying about leaving his girlfriend and essentially just had an affair with her.

Okay. Warning. Red Alert. By this point you should already hit the "Douchebag" alert and get out of there. BUT NOT MIKA. AT THE WEE RELATIONSHIP PERIOD OF LIKE WHAT 1-3 days. She has decided she is madly in love with him, and since he broke up with his ex finally. That's all hunky dory. Hiro is obviously the best guy ever. (sarcasm hand raised) I can already tell he's totally trustworthy and will sweep me off my feet!

What is it with shojo heroines having so little self worth in these stories? Okay, reword that. Mika is the most pathetic, codependent, idiotic, and obviously masochistic shojo heroine I think I've ever seen.(And she has such competition like Hatsumi from Hot Gimmick!) Actually, there's only about one character I actually liked in this series. Everyone generally seemed to have the idiot ball so far up their rear ends they wouldn't know what actually care and empathy was if you cured their parents of life-threatening illnesses and then dedicated your entire lottery earnings to ending world hunger. Hiro comes off as a controlling, emotionally abusive sociopath for the most part, and cancer aside, this is even -BEFORE- the cancer things. Observe the various romantic things Hiro does!- Refuses to call the police on the rapists, in favor of punching one. Leaving his CRAZED EX TO GO COMPLETELY UNPUNISHED. Responsible? I think so!-Emotionally abuses Mika for the HORRIBLE CRIME OF HAVING A FRIENDLY NON-ROMANTIC MOMENT with a perfectly nice and friendly guy. (After all she is property.) Then insists it's her fault until she believes it.-Tries to break up with Mika and blames her for SOMEONE KISSING HER IN HER SLEEP. Sound romantic? Sound like a dream guy you'd fall in love with? I feel like my knees are getting weak. And this is before he has I AM DYING as an excuse (As if it was one).

So then his ex (WHO BY ALL RIGHTS SHOULD BE IN PRISON, If Hiro was a reasonable, caring individual. ) shows up and causes Mika to miscarry their love baby. Which makes them sad ): Because the melodrama has to happen in every chapter in this story. And thinks are okay and then Hiro turns into a MASSIVE DOUCHEBAG. With such things like HUFFING PAINT. and MAKING OUT WITH OTHER CHICKS. And when Mika gets mad he's just like "WHAT DID I DO". Yeah.Romantic.So then he essentially makes use of her codependant to get head and to make her hurt herself and essentially rape her, and then changes his mind. And Mika is sad and of course self blames because she is totally at fault, and at this point she's just sort of bringing it upon herself by being a complete idiot who sounds horribly too much like a domestic abuse victim.

So she goes around being a complete psycho obsessed with him, with her obviously unhealthy (Like her every other relationship) friendship with an obviously also psycho and crazy girl who is supposedly her best friend, who always turns on her at every opportunity. Because isn't that just what all our friends are like?

If Mika was a compelling heroine, with a spine, a brain, and the self worth of a piece of dust, and not a whiny, passive codependant hollow shell of an actual character maybe this would be the part where she would go "You know all my friends are horrible to me. Hiro was horrible to me. Maybe I should rethink my social circle." But sadly, this is not one of those stories. What really gets me is that

So logically she MOVES ON AND FORGETS HIM RIGHT. No she just whines forever and does self destructive things and MOURNS HIRO FOREVER. Because obviously Hiro was such a catch, where will she find a guy who blames her for everything, dominates her, and refuses to actually protect her from his insane and dangerous ex? She'll never feel that much romance again! What really got me is when she was upset Hiro's sister had the nerve to tell her to "Think about his feelings!" For motivations that were never explained. Aren't you just being so selfish Mika! Wanting answers for that person who manipulated you, emotionally abused you, and told you he'd take you back for sexual favors, before going LOLJK GET OUT OF MY BED.

You're so very, very selfish. You horrible girl.

So she gets the "Genuine nice guy" involved eventually. And come on, if you've read shojo you know this character. The smart, funny, nice, sweet, caring character, that the main girl will pull around on a string and manipulate until ZOMG TRUE LOVE comes back and he's kicked on his rear to be in the friendzone and since this is a shojo probably angst about how he'll never love again/kill himself.

Guess what happens here?

I don't even really need to go on so I'll sum it up. Mika never forgets about the douchenozzle. Runs off with Hiro the Sociopathic Cancer Patient because he "DID IT SO SHE'D NOT CARE WHEN HE DIIIED". Which totally justifies taking advantage of her codependancy, breaking her when she might be suicidal, and using her for sexual favors. (I saw someone on a forum saying this was a "Mature Decision".) And I'm sorry. Having cancer isn't an excuse for being an absolute douchebag, you know. The one he already was pre-cancer anyways.

I read this for the trainwreck it was. And It surprised me with just how much of a trainwreck it turned out to be.

It was unrealistic, melodramatic trash. With wonderful messages like. "Talking to other men is being an unfaithful terrible girlfriend, even if it's not romantically. And you deserve to feel bad about it and he deserves to leave/get kicked out of school." "Being kissed in your sleep is your fault." "Your boyfriend practically owns you" "Don't call the police on rapists, they were just being paid to do it!" and "You can be as horrible as you want in life, just hope you get a life threatening disease and anything you did before is totally justified and reasonable."

oh one more. "Your friends can turn on you for unwanted contact/being kissed in your sleep and any other minor infraction, and you should always take them back for it."

and "Sex in a school library is the most romantic thing ever"

And that's it for the TL;DR of this inspired by going through this again when my friend was.Toodles.

Well I guess I should say something positive um.I liked Yuu.He was okay. And I guess despite it being a little weird I didn't mind the art at all. We cool?

Hmm honestly I don't really see why people hate Hiro (in the manga) so much. I don't think he's a jerk, rather, sometimes his failure to be completely responsible makes him a bit more of a realistic, fucked up 16-year-old. Well, actually sometimes he's a bit to nice too be a 16-year-old, because when Mika feel hopeless it's mostly her fault for not communicating (well, until later, when Hiro does fuck up, but hey, it's called an interesting plot), but they get better at overcoming it. I almost wished that Hiro would be the father of my child, ahahaha. But well, I'm not going to keep reading this, no time for a post-fiction depression.

Also, Hiro in the drama doesn't look like a realistic gyaru-o delinquent, what's with that?

After coming off a stream of heartbreaking and well-written mangas/books, I felt that Koizora didn't particularly strike any sort of emotional chords in me. I mean, it takes a pretty overused cliche for tragedies AND combines it with ridiculous characters and a storyline that looks as if it's been made to induce tears. With respects to the manga, the art isn't anything great (but it gets the job done), and the pacing is inconsistent.

The characters are barely tolerable, and their actions are unfathomable. Hiro is a major arse who needs some advice on how to treat the one he loves well. I somewhat understand his actions, but what he does to "protect" Mika, is to hurt her (emotionally and physically), treat her like garbage, have relationships with other girls (in front of her) when she's obviously still in love with him, because that's obviously what you do to not hurt loved ones right? How about communicating with her, telling her the truth, figuring out what you guys need to do to get through this time, and having a lovely time before...yea? Mika, on the other hand, needs some major psychological help. With all the crap that goes on with her, sometimes I wonder how she can even get herself up in the morning. I really don't understand how she can still love Hiro after all of this. Comparing her to strong heroines with similar backgrounds like Lisbeth Salander was a HUGE mistake on my part, but really, for a story that so many sing praises about, I expected it and its' characters to be in a league of their own. And they're not.

I think if I had read this a couple years ago when I was in high school the rating would have slightly been different, but I've just seen far too many great tragic mangas/stories/movies/etc... to get emotional about this. I think a lot of appeal of Koizora just depends on where you are in life, so if you're a bit older and want a fantastic romantic tragic manga go read something like Melo-Holic.

NOTE: I wrote this after I read the novel, watched the drama, and read the manga.